Now our foreign aid bill to EU goes up by £177m

BRITAIN sent £1.5 billion to the EU last year to spend on overseas aid projects, including help for coconut farmers in the Caribbean.

One scheme promoted African dancing and another funded juggling lessons in Tanzania.

Figures released yesterday showed the chunk of the UK’s aid budget that is funnelled through the EU soared by £177million, or 13 per cent, in a year.

It came despite warnings about how ‘we don’t have any oversight’ over the way Brussels spends our aid cash.

The data also revealed how we sent almost £50millon in aid directly to China in 2016 and nearly £100million to India, where it was used for yoga lessons for heart patients.

Tory MPs last night urged new International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt to get a grip on how the cash is spent. A large of proportion Britain’s bloated aid budget, which topped £13 billion last year, goes via international bodies such as the EU. As long as the UK remains a member of the Brussels bloc, it has to fund one eighth of the European Commission aid budget.

Last month, while still in charge of the Department for International Development (DfID), Priti Patel said: ‘We just give a chunk of money over to the European Commission which we don’t have any oversight over’. She added: ‘There isn’t much oversight and transparency and accountability.’

Among the EU’s projects were a £1 million scheme to help coconut farmers in the Caribbean boost the quality of their produce, and £167,740 for education in Dar es Salaam, including samba, acrobatics, juggling and trapeze lessons.

Some £581,152 went on promoting ‘the cultural heritage of music and dance in North Tanzania’.

Last year £1.5 billion of the UK’s aid budget was sent to the European Commission, compared to £1.33billion in 2015. The money Britain gives to the EU contributes to the Government’s target to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on aid. Our aid spending reached £13.4billion in 2016, up £1.3billion on the year before.

Meanwhile, despite pledges to stop sending aid directly to India, last year Whitehall officials spent £92.6 million on projects there. The amount sent to China jumped by £2.6 million to £46.9 million.

UK-funded schemes included £86,616 on testing whether yoga helps people who have had heart attacks in India.

In China, British aid cash went on improving dementia care in Qingdao and a programme encouraging pupils to eat less salt.

Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said: ‘The problem with the set target is that it means money has to be spent. Spending money to teach money on yoga in India is spending money to teach Catholicism to the Holy Father.’

Fellow Tory Sir Bill Cash said: ‘People will find it hard to believe aid is going to places like China.’

John O’Connell, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘The whole aid budget needs a serious overhaul so that it is based on helping those actually in need, not making politicians feel good about themselves at international meetings.’

A DfID spokesman said: ‘ The UK’s development funding through the EU reduces poverty. All EU development programmes are individually scrutinised and approved by the UK.’

‘Whole budget needs a serious overhaul’